I’ve been thinking about your Beyond the Beyond series these last few weeks and have been wanting to write you an email in response – one as thoughtful as the essays themselves, but with my mother’s husband dying a few weeks back (I received and read Beyond the Beyond Pt. 1 on the day he died), then helping her prepare for his service, and now, tomorrow, we're heading out to NYC to spend time with Tsoknyi Rinpoche up at Garrison, I just haven’t had a long-enough moment to write anything of worth – my brain being akin to a wet-rag of late. But the bottom line would have been: I hope this is all in preparation for a book, since the piece in full allows for some of the tenderest and insightful entry points into the Heart Sutra I’ve yet read. And, from a writer’s perspective, I’m doubly impressed that you can go so deep in so short-a-time (seemingly only a few weeks). I wrote a book over the pandemic, Entering the Mind, which moves through the Dzogchen teachings from a practitioner’s perspective, and so I know how grueling, time consuming and, in retrospect, self-liberating such treaties can be. In other words, I truly appreciate how much work you’ve put into those three essays alone — the subtly of thought, the consideration and refinement of Word, et al. As said, I hope it’s all moving toward a larger work that might one day get out to a wider audience. For now, though, rather than a lengthy email, I’ll take the easy route and thank you here for your thoughts on that timeless masterwork, The Heart Sutra.
Hi Richard,
I’ve been thinking about your Beyond the Beyond series these last few weeks and have been wanting to write you an email in response – one as thoughtful as the essays themselves, but with my mother’s husband dying a few weeks back (I received and read Beyond the Beyond Pt. 1 on the day he died), then helping her prepare for his service, and now, tomorrow, we're heading out to NYC to spend time with Tsoknyi Rinpoche up at Garrison, I just haven’t had a long-enough moment to write anything of worth – my brain being akin to a wet-rag of late. But the bottom line would have been: I hope this is all in preparation for a book, since the piece in full allows for some of the tenderest and insightful entry points into the Heart Sutra I’ve yet read. And, from a writer’s perspective, I’m doubly impressed that you can go so deep in so short-a-time (seemingly only a few weeks). I wrote a book over the pandemic, Entering the Mind, which moves through the Dzogchen teachings from a practitioner’s perspective, and so I know how grueling, time consuming and, in retrospect, self-liberating such treaties can be. In other words, I truly appreciate how much work you’ve put into those three essays alone — the subtly of thought, the consideration and refinement of Word, et al. As said, I hope it’s all moving toward a larger work that might one day get out to a wider audience. For now, though, rather than a lengthy email, I’ll take the easy route and thank you here for your thoughts on that timeless masterwork, The Heart Sutra.
Much love,
C von Hassett